The Administrator
by FanFiction Interlanguage
Summary: Translation of "L'Administrateur" by Umanimo. The Master appears suddenly in the life of Tegan, former companion of the Doctor - and has come to make her a strange proposition.
1. Act I, Chapter 1: Tegan

**Translation of "L'Administrateur" by Umanimo.  
**

* * *

Tegan watches the sun set over the countryside around Perth. Seated on a wooden garden chair, she smokes her only cigarette of the day on the patio in front of her little house. And as often happens at this hour, her mind drifts, melancholy, to the part of her life of which she never speaks to anyone.

She had left voluntarily, because she could no longer stand it. That sort of existence was too intense to keep up for long. Now, she often regrets that decision.

The life she leads is not uninteresting. She can't complain, really. She has a job that she loves, teaching enthusiastic young girls to become air hostesses. She has a nice house, although perhaps just a little too isolated. She has a kind husband who tolerates her outbursts of temper. He is elsewhere, in the kitchen, where she can hear him singing as he prepares a meal.

Tegan smiles. Brian works in a bank, but he had a thwarted career as a tenor, which shows itself at every opportunity.

The moment she gets up, after having stubbed out her cigarette, she sees something on the path leading to their home - a slim silhouette, barely distinct in the bright light of the enormous sun setting on the horizon.

"Hmm," she murmurs to herself. "Who could be coming to see us?" Oddly, while she is certain she doesn't know him - he is close enough for her to distinguish his features - he seems familiar. Something in his stride, supple and springy, feline. And an unpleasant bearing.

The man stops at the little gate. If he were a local, he would cross the barrier without waiting, since the door is not locked. This offhand manner always tends to annoy Tegan a little. But he does not do it. Nor does he call out. He simply waits for her to come to him.

She hesitates, but to not go and see what he wants would be rather rude. So, she walks down the path to meet him.

He is of unremarkable size, just a little above average. Dressed all in black, in a sober but very elegant suit, he has a short beard - a goatee, which just covers his chin. His blue eyes have a cold look about them, which makes the young woman shudder.

"Good evening, what can I do for you?" she asks, with forced politeness.

"Tegan Jovanka!" he exclaims. "Or rather," he adds, with a glance at the name on the letterbox, "should I say, Tegan Henson, now?"

"Who are you?" she asks slowly. "I've never seen you before...but I'm sure I know you."

"Both are true," he answers, with a smile as unsettling as his gaze. He glances over Tegan's shoulder towards the house. "Are we going to continue this discussion on opposite sides of the gate?"

"No...no, of course not - please, come in," she responds, after a moment's hesitation. If she allows this man to pass the gate, she somehow senses that her life will never be the same again. But didn't she find it boring, just a few minutes ago? She picks up the light latch and pushes the little wooden gate, which is all that separates her from the unknown.

He passes close by her and walks confidently to the porch. Then, he settles down on one of the folding chairs, carefully tugging at the crease of his trousers.

"My husband-..." she begins.

"...does not need to know what we are going to say," he finishes.

"I don't keep anything from Brian!" she protests, also taking a seat.

"Really?" He leans towards her a little, and scrutinizes her with his clear eyes. "Mr. Henson _really_ knows all of your life, Miss Jovanka?"

He is insisting on the _Miss_ and her former name. She feels her cheeks flare.

"I...I don't know _what_ you're talking about," she stammers. But at the same time, her mind is racing.

 _He knows! How does he know? Who on Earth knows I travelled with the Doctor?_

She thinks hard, but no name comes to her. Of course, she _had_ met people during her adventures, but none who knew precisely who that man in the cricket outfit was.

"What do you want?" she adds. "To blackmail me?"

He raises his hands in a gesture of protest.

"Of course not! Nothing so trivial!" He leans towards her again, and his tone changes. He is no longer the charming man who pays a courtesy visit. "Tegan," he murmurs. "I need your help."

She is surprised at the worry written in his gaze.

"Who are you?" she repeats. "You still haven't said."

"I'm sure you know already."

A name surfaces in her mind, but still she hesitates to voice it - it just seems so improbable.

"I can see in your eyes that you understand," he adds.

"What are you doing here, and what do you want from me?"

"I've come to tell you that I need your help."

"No!" she declares. "It's hardly _your_ style, to ask for the help of one of the Doctor's friends! Unless...unless...you think you could trap him!" She gets up. "Go away! I'm not naive enough to fall for your claptrap! You've never frightened me, you know. And you can tell Brian what you want - he won't believe you. He's too rational for that."

"Calm down, Tegan." He grabs her elbows and forces her back into her seat. He doesn't hurt her, but his grip is so strong that she can't resist. "Just listen to me for a few minutes," he requests. "If I don't convince you, I will leave as quickly as I came."

"You are a _snake_!" she snaps. "You-..."

"Ten minutes, no more," he pleads. She leans back in her chair, crosses her arms and mutters,

"Talk! I'll listen to your twaddle for ten minutes, but then you will walk out that gate, and I never want to see you again." She removes her watch and pointedly places it on the table. At their backs, the sun has disappeared, and the fading light washes everything in a golden hue that quickly dissipates.

"The universe is constantly in an unstable equilibrium," he begins. "Every concept needs to have its opposite, so that this balance never tips too far to one side or the other. You know the principle, I suppose. Every civilization has given it a name. Like _yin_ and _yang_ , from the people of China. In each half of the _yin_ , one finds a small part of the _yang_ ; but in each part of the _yang_ , there's a bit of _yin_. The equilibrium of the cosmos is principally due to the presence of a sort of universal _yin_ and _yang_ : the White Guardian and the Black Guardian. One represents absolute good, the other, absolute evil. They are both necessary. _However_ ," he adds, after a few seconds' pause, "what would happen if the White Guardian suddenly began to behave like the Black Guardian? How would the latter react?"

"He'd be delighted, I expect," Tegan interrupts him.

"Not really. Because the presence of too much _yin_ threatens to tip the world not into chaos, but into nothingness. No more. Including, no more Black Guardian."

"Spell it out," Tegan interrupts again. "I still don't see what all of this has to do with you, and what you've come here for."

"I used these metaphors to try and make you understand what is happening. Who are the people we both know that would be the closest equivalents to the White Guardian and the Black Guardian?"

"The Doctor and...you."

He nods his head. She can barely see now, in the shadow of dusk, but she catches the movement.

"Wait," she protests. "Are you telling me the Doctor is going to become _evil_?"

"No, I'm not talking about the future - I'm talking about the present. It is already happening. He has already gone to the other side. During his last regeneration. And every day, the universe rocks a little more. An antagonizing force is needed to oppose him. A force that can equal him."

"I don't believe you!" Tegan replies. "Of all the nonsense that you can come up with, this is the most ridiculous! What's more, I don't see what it's got to do with me. If you want to go and play a valiant knight battling a demon, you go and do it!"

"There is a problem."

"Oh, right?" she says ironically. "And what's that? You can't manage to get on your white steed? You want me to give you a leg up?"

"It's a bit like that. I don't think I'm very good at this, Tegan," he admits. "To do evil...well, I know that. I don't even need to think about it - it's second nature. But the opposite..."

"Ten minutes up," the Australian replies coldly, straightening up. "It's completely dark, and any minute now, Brian is going to call me to the table. Go away. You've missed your shot. You were subtler when I knew you. You are softening, Master. I won't walk you out - you know the way."

She rises, turns her back on him and enters the house, where she carefully locks the door. A few seconds later, the Master hears all of the shutters slam, and then a muffled conversation between male and female voices.


	2. Act I, Chapter 2: Valeyard

In the morning, before going out into the cool, fresh air to drink her first coffee, she wakes her husband by tickling his neck. He grunts and rolls over, but she knows he'll be up in a few minutes.

She opens the door, and is startled to see the black silhouette of the Master in the same place as the previous day, sitting on the folding lawn chair, his right ankle resting on his left knee.

Furious, she comes across and sets her cup roughly down on the table, ready to shout at him for not having kept his promise. A few drops of coffee spill and spread out in the saucer.

"Did you see that?"

The Master sets his foot down on the ground and shows her the black puddle. Strangely, it looks more like a thick paste than coffee. He gently lifts the cup and upturns the saucer. The liquid, instead of falling straight to the ground, veers to one side and lands a good twenty centimetres from where it should.

"It's starting," the Master observes.

"It _can't_ be what you said," replies Tegan. "It's windy, that's all."

"Windy?"

Around them, the branches are perfectly motionless.

"Then...I don't know...you deliberately swung the saucer so the coffee didn't fall straight."

"Try it yourself," he responds. She sighs.

"I do wonder why I'm listening to you, when I know you're incapable of the _least_ trace of honesty."

She takes the cup and spills a little, taking care to keep it steady. The few drops fall to the ground with a clearly slanted path.

"It's increased from earlier," the Master observes. "Before nothingness, entropy will consume the universe more and more quickly. Total chaos will descend, before that too disappears. And this will be very difficult and very painful for every living being in the cosmos."

"As if _you're_ concerned with others!" she snipes.

"For others, no - but for myself, yes. The 'Doctor', who is running amok now...but I think we can no longer give him that name. He would be better designated by the word he used himself, the first time I met him: the Valeyard. He took my place on the side of evil. Our duo is not as powerful as the forces of the Guardians, but it is essential to the equilibrium. And this equilibrium is broken. I will be the first to feel the strongest effects of the chaos, and the first to disappear as well."

"There, I knew it!" says Tegan triumphantly. "You're out for yourself more than anything else!"

"That is correct," he affirms. "I've never denied it. And believe me, to come to you asking for help is the most humiliating thing I've ever done. As well as having to fight 'on the good side'."

Mechanically, Tegan takes a sip of her cold and tasteless drink.

"It's odd, but...I believe you now," she murmurs. "Even though experience tells me this is another ruse, and you're tricking me...but I want to believe you." She turns to him. "What will happen to the Doctor if we beat him and get the universe back on its feet?"

"I'd like to be able to give you an answer, but in reality, I know nothing about that. I tried to travel into the future, but I came up against an impassable wall. This may mean that we will fail and that in a short time, everything will be gone. Or it may mean that the possibilities are so numerous that they form a barrier that can't be crossed.

At that moment, Brian Henson starts singing at the top of his lungs - very loudly, and with a terrible accent - the refrain of an Offenbach air.

" _Tell me Veeenus, what pleasure you fiiind, in causing the downfall, the downfall of my viiirtue...?_ " The song trails off to a mumble, and she can't help but smile, despite the seriousness of the conversation.

"At least Brian is happy and doesn't suspect anything," she sighs.

"For now," the Master reminds her. "I don't want it to seem like I'm rushing you, Tegan, but you must decide before it's too late. We don't have much room for error. It's already becoming difficult to travel through time."

"And if I refuse?"

"I will go alone, and my chances of success will be nearly, or equal to, zero."

"That doesn't seem like you - the modesty. You're usually rather vain."

"I am doing a lot of things that don't seem like me, at the moment. And that wasn't modesty - that was as accurate a calculation as possible of the probabilities."

"Brian will notice I'm gone."

It is at that admission that she has finally accepted. He gets up, and answers,

"If we succeed, I will bring you back here in a few seconds. If we fail, there will be no place to bring you back to, and Brian will no longer exist."

"What a cheerful way of looking at it!" she jokes, with an acidic irony. "Is that supposed to comfort me?"

She returns to the house, puts her head inside and yells,

"Brian, I'm off! I'm going to work."

"OK," can be heard in the distance. "Have a good day, dear - see you this evening. Oh," he adds, "I'm going bowling with Riley and Madison. I'll be back a bit late."

Nodding her head, Tegan murmurs,

"You can still go bowling tonight with Riley...and Madison."

She returns to the Master, who is waiting for her near the fence.

"Let's go," she declares. "Where's your TARDIS?"

"Hmm...there's another problem I haven't told you - I no longer have a TARDIS. In fact, there are no longer any TARDISes. And there is no chance of making another."

"How is that?" Tegan asks, walking with him down the path leading away from her home. "What's happened?"

"Our home planet disappeared. In fact, I wonder if that wasn't ultimately the first act of the Valeyard. There was a war...a very bloody war, between the Time Lords and the Daleks."

"Ah...the Daleks." Tegan sighs.

"I played a part too - albeit reluctantly. What's more, that is why I'm once again able to regenerate. The Time Lords needed me to lead the battle. They needed everyone. Towards the end, the war had got out of control. There seemed to be only one solution, and the Doctor took it: to completely destroy both civilizations."

"He killed all his own people?" Tegan gasps, stunned. "How are you still alive?"

The Master smiles.

"I always find a way out." Then he continues, morosely. "Also, when I tell you I'm afraid, you have to believe me."

"That sounds strange to my ears, but actually, I do believe you. If you don't have a TARDIS, how do you travel?"

"I saved this technology," he says, pointing to a golden-bronze coloured, fine metal bracelet on his left wrist. "And I've improved it. Of course, it's not worth what a TARDIS would be. This is much less comfortable, but it allows me mobility in time and space as accurately as if I still had my machine."

"Yes, but what about me - how am I going to follow you?"

"Wait, I'm adjusting it..."

They slip into an acacia grove, and he taps on the object with the little fingernail on his right hand. She understands why he has grown this nail and cut it sharp - it is a simple tool, not an unpleasant whim.

"There needs to be contact so that the temporal bubble takes you as well, but don't touch the controls on top."

"How?" she queries.

"Take my arm, underneath...yes, there."

She had never imagined one day doing something like this - gripping the wrist of the Master in her hands, not only willingly, but with pleasure.

Because even if this isn't what she would have hoped for, it is an adventure all the same.

And then she is drawn into a vertiginous whirlwhind.


	3. Act I, Chapter 3: Chaos

Tegan finds herself on all fours, overcome by nausea. A rather wry voice sounds over the muffled ringing in her head.

"I told you it wasn't comfortable."

The Master is standing next to her, and eyes her discomfort with amused indifference. He makes no move to help her as she struggles to her feet. She has just enough time to rush to a dirty, grey wall and lean on it, before she is regurgitating the few sips of coffee, all that is in her stomach.

"Humans are so fragile," the Master remarks behind her.

She would have liked to send him one of her scathing retorts that she has always been good at, but for the moment, she is too busy calming her rebelling digestive system.

Finally, she manages to regain control of her body, and begins to look around. The area very much resembles a small street of a large city. Probably a megacity. The scenery is almost uniformly grey - walls, streets and street furniture. Even the sky above their heads has a greyish hue. A few people pass around them, paying no attention to them. Most are dressed in neutral colours, and their faces are preoccupied. They seem to be in a hurry to reach their destinations, and walk quickly.

"Where are we?" she asks.

"The name is not important," the Master replies. "One of the many colonies that your species has established throughout the universe, and which has prospered...until now. Until he arrived."

"I don't see much difference between this place and any big city on Earth."

"Then _here_ is what this town was like less than a year ago..."

He presses or three tiny buttons on the time-ring, and then warns her:

"Hang onto my arm."

"Oh no," the young woman moans. "Not again!"

"Quickly!" he snaps.

There is a new sensation of dizziness - shorter, though. She barely feels the vague dizziness on arrival.

"Well that went better," she sighs, relieved.

"That is because we are displaced only in time, and over a short period," the Master explains.

They are in exactly the same place. However, it doesn't look like the place they were a few seconds ago. The walls are painted in pastel colours, and the sky is a bright blue. There are people circling around them, but the faces are open, smiling, the clothes diverse and colourful.

Some street shops offer merchandise under umbrellas or awnings. The crowd mills around these shops. The noise of dozens of conversations, calls, jokes and laughter fills their ears.

A man arrives, followed by a large troop of onlookers. He is playing an instrument which resembles a guitar, but produces more varied sounds. He sings, and the crowd echoes some of the lyrics in the chorus.

"Less than a year, you say?" she murmurs, frowning doubtfully. "How could a change like this have taken place in /that/ time? And how did he do it - since you say it's the work of the Doc-...well, of the Valeyard?"

"Even while leading the most perfect life possible," he explains, leading her towards one of the shops serving drinks, where a few chairs and wobbly tables allow them to sit, "most people still find something to complain about."

"Bloody oath!" Tegan mumbles.

"It is on that fact that he plays. He promises an improvement. He highlights aspects that could be better. He offers solutions - or rather, he suggests them. These shops are blocking the way, aren't they? Oh yes, it's nice that they're there. But all the same, we should put a little order into it, shouldn't we? Why not give permission to pitch awnings only to those who really deserve it and won't bother you? Everyone agrees, of course. To restore some order...who /hasn't/ dreamed of that? Don't tell me it has never crossed your mind, Tegan."

"Yes, of course," admits the young woman.

"So he continues to push in that direction, and soon, accomplishing anything requires so much paperwork and so many authorizations that the machine jams. What we saw a few minutes ago is only the first step. I am going to show you what happens next. We're going to have to move quite far again, because as I told you, the future is no longer as accessible. Let's go to a world that's already at a much more advanced stage."

 **oooooooooo**

Panting, Tegan recovers from the space-time transfer and straightens up.

The city is now only a village. Well, what remains of a village. Everything around them is in a state of advanced decrepitude. The streets are potholed, the walls leprous. Everywhere are broken windows and doors missing or barred by nailed beams.

Furtive people creep along the storefronts. These are no longer even the indifferent and hurried crowds she saw in the grey metropolis. It is a terrorized people that has survived.

"Authorization to wear pink?"

Tegan jumps. The metallic voice is coming from a truncated cone-shaped helmet atop a body dressed in a thick-padded costume. Six similar figures have risen up around them, seeming to come from nowhere. Over their shoulders, she sees the people moving away quickly, throwing fleeting glances.

"Authorization to wear black?" continues another of these individuals, addressing the Master. "Authorization to have a beard? Invoice for this bracelet?" It points to the space-time device.

"We're leaving," whispers the Master. He raises his hand to make new adjustments to the device, but it's too late.

"Threatening gesture!" exclaims one of the auditors. "Alert!"

Immediately, four of the six project an intense yellow ray with their gloves onto the Master, who collapses in a heap, moaning on the ground.

"What are you _doing_?" Tegan protests. "He wasn't run-..."

"Alert!" another of the individuals rattles. "Untimely cries!"

 _No!_ Tegan wants to cry. But a shooting pain overcomes her as a yellow halo surrounds her and her strength betrays her. She too falls.

She is in a state of semi-consciousness, where all that she sees and hears is distorted, and she is unable to move a muscle. She feels that somebody is moving her. It seems to take forever. Then, her head hits something and she loses consciousness.

 **ooooooooooo**

Slowly, she regains her senses. She is still a little dizzy, but most of all, her mouth is sticky. And she is terribly thirsty.

She sits up to find that she is in a room that looks very much like a cell. At least, what could be a cell if one reduced that concept to its minimum. It is about one metre wide, two long and two in height. Barely enough to lie down and stand up. It would almost fit a coffin if the ceiling were half as low.

This narrowness is particularly distressing - that nothing breaks the linearity of the walls. No doors, no windows. No furniture either. She gets up and gropes around as high as its size allows, to search for a bump that would indicate that she is not in a fully-sealed tomb, but in a place that one can get out of .

"Hello?" she finally attempts in a low voice. "Can anyone hear me?"

There is no answer.

"Can anyone hear me?" she repeats, as loudly as she can. It is as if the sound is smothered between the walls. She sits down and buries her face in her arms folded on her lap, trying to stop the building attack of claustrophobia. She is not usually claustrophobic, but this room can do nothing but cause that.

A voice, distorted by a loudspeaker in disrepair, finally replies soberly,

"Yes?"

"You can hear me?" she gasps.

"Yes."

"What am I doing here?"

"Infraction of a number of rules."

"What infractions?"

"You will know at your trial."

A vague noise tells her that someone has just turned off the sound.

"Wait!" she cries. "Can I have a glass of water? Please! I'm dying of thirst!"

After a few seconds of silence, the voice returns.

"We need an authorization for a glass of water."

"What?" Tegan says, surprised. "You need an authorization to give me a glass of water?"

"Yes." And the sound is muted again.

She finally falls asleep, despite the thirst and anxiety. Upon awakening, she finds a glass of water present at her feet.

 _Well_ , she thinks with bitter irony, _I am authorized to not die of thirst. This is great_!

She almost swallows it in one gulp, despite the unpleasant taste of dust. But another problem surfaces. She wants to go to the toilet, and the room has no system permitting it.

"Hey!" she cries out again. "I need to...well...to go to the loo."

"Specify," the voice answers her after some minutes.

"To...to...to urinate."

"Then go."

"But _where_?" the Australian says impatiently. "There's no place for-..."

"On the floor. It is self-cleaning."

"Ah!" She is about to move to the corner to relieve herself, when a thought strikes her. "Can you see me?" she demands.

"Of course."

"Could you not...not _look_ while I do...what I need to?"

"No."

"Why?" she begs. "It's _private_! It bothers me, that you're doing that."

"I am charged with monitoring you. I am monitoring you."

 _Anyway_ , she thinks, _even if he tells me he is not looking, I have no way of checking_.

She sighs and crouches in a corner. Gradually, as the liquid spreads over the ground, it disappears, and the area remains as clear when she has finished as when she had begun.

"Practical," she whispers, "but I wonder what happens when you do the _other_ business. I hope I'm out out of here before I need to do _that_."

A vain hope.


	4. Act I, Chapter 4: Trial

Tegan has quickly lost all sense of time. Although their environment is regulated by periods where the lights dim a little without ever fully turning off, and by the meagre meals that appear through a trapdoor in the ground, it is impossible for her to say whether it is night or day.

She has finally become accustomed to the narrow space, and to the fact of having to do private things under the constant gaze of someone she can't see. On the other hand, she does not become accustomed to the solitude. To the total lack of contact with anyone other than the disembodied voice, with which she can only have minimal conversations. At the end of an indetermined period, she realizes that she could even accept the presence of the Master. After an even longer time, she realizes that she would give anything to hear his mockeries of the human race.

"What have I come to?" she sighs.

"Pay attention," she hears one morning - or one evening, perhaps. "Follow the corridor."

One of the small walls of the room disappears. The corridor, which is just as wide as her cell, stretches before her. It seems interminable.

She heads forward as quickly as her legs allow; they are no longer accustomed to walking. After several minutes, she realizes that she has forgotten to put on her flats and that they are still in her cell. But when she turns around to get them, she bumps into a wall. It is impossible for her to go back the way she came.

So, she continues barefoot. She hasn't worn the pink suit that caused her incarceration for a long time. When she had asked for a change of clothes, they gave her a tunic and trousers of grey cloth. And when she had called for her clothes again, she had not received a response.

Finally, she emerges into a medium-sized room. Or rather, a glass cage inside that room. There is a second cage beside hers. The Master is there. He glances at her with an expression in which she reads a mixture of anger and fatigue. The same things she feels. Finally, he is not so different from her. Shut up alone with himself for weeks, he has come to have similar thoughts.

He is wearing the same type of grey tunic and trousers set, except he still has his shoes. And hair that is too long.

 _Me too_ , she thinks. _My hair has grown without being trimmed properly._

She calculates that if his speed of hair growth is equivalent to that of a human, that makes it about three months that they have been locked up, three terrestrial months.

But his beard has the shape of the one he was wearing before. She guesses by the colour of his cheeks that the shaving is fresh. _Exhibit A, then_ , she thinks.

The other exhibits, their clothing and personal objects, are placed on a table which separates the two transparent boxes from the rest of the room.

This one has light grey walls, as did her cell and the corridor that brought her here.

Near the wall facing them, there is a slightly elevated pulpit. A man, appearing in an opening that closes immediately, comes to take a seat there. A very ordinary man, undistinguished face, also dressed all in grey. He is neither young nor old, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Tegan has the impression of seeing the model standard of a base Human.

In a monotonous voice, without granting them a look, he begins to read the list of their misdeeds on a screen lying on the reading desk before him:

"Wearing non-standard clothing without authorisation. Wearing of non-standard facial hair style without authorisation. Possession and wearing of non-standard objects without authorisation. No presentation of the aforementioned objects' receipts. No presentation of identification cards."

He stops and raises his eyes to them.

"And worst of all, identification impossible. You are not on file. I could even say that legally, you do not exist."

"So, since we do not exist," the Mater retorts sardonically, "we cannot have committed all that you're accusing us of."

The official - Tegan can't help but give him that name, for want of a more appropriate on - adds with obvious disgust, as if such an act has forever sullied his beautiful, orderly existence,

"We have given you a temporary identity in order to hold the trial. We had to build it from scratch."

He taps on the screen.

"Mr. John Smith," he announces, "and Miss Liz Jones."

"My name is Tegan Henson - maiden name Jovanka," the prisoner protests.

"Prove it," replies the man. "Do you have official documents to present?"

"Not here. I didn't have my ID card on me when I left the house."

"ID card? I don't know that. What I need is a birth certificate duly authenticated by the Officer of Legal Births. An up-to-date vaccination certificate. A non-death certificate issued by the registrar of non-deaths, not older than afortnight and certified by two witnesses. Your lease and a rent receipt dating from less than a month ago, and a certificate proving that you behave as a responsible tenant and do not disturb the neighbourhood."

"This is ridiculous!" Tegan exclaims. "Who walks around all the time with all those papers?"

"Everybody, of course," the official assures her stiffly.

"Listen," pleads the young woman. "Be reasonable. We're not from here. We don't know all your rules. You can't tell us off for not following rules we don't know anything about."

"No-one is supposed to ignore the law," he replies sententiously. "And now, be quiet - you are wasting my time. I am going to calculate the sentence."

Again, he spends a short time consulting his machine.

"The computer has added together your very numerous crimes, and the result is what I expected - that is to say, death. Such breaches of essential discipline to any society worthy of the name deserve no less."

Tegan hears a sarcastic laugh coming from the cage beside her.

" _I_ , of all people, am going to be convicted for dressing in black and wearing a beard?!" mocks the Master.

"Yes," Tegan murmurs. "Ironic, isn't it? Wait!" she continues for the benefit of their interlocutor. "You can't do it like this! We need...attorneys, lawyers, I don't know - who do you have for that here?"

"The procedures have been extremely simplified. All of the history of defences, accusations, jury debates, was completely useless. Now, do excuse me, Ms. Jones, but my schedule is very full.

A sliding wall descends from the ceiling and separates them from the rest of the room. The glass wall also starts to slide towards them, forcing them to rejoin the narrow corridor they followed on the way. Again, Tegan finds herself alone.

"Follow the corridor," intones the same voice that had notified her of this order just minutes before.

She has no choice but to obey. This time, it leads her to a booth equipped with a chair covered in grey leatherette, and a small tablet protruding from the wall. On this tablet is a button A single, nondescript button, rather large, round, also grey.

"Sit down," says the voice.

Once again, she cannot do otherwise. The door has just closed behind her, and the space is so narrow that the only solution is to sit down in the seat. She is barely seated when metallic bands come out of the arms of the chair and immobilize her wrists, while the same thing happens with her feet and ankles. Finally, a third strap encircles her shoulders, and a helmet descends from the ceiling and sets itself on her head.

The upper part of the wall loses its opacity, and through it she sees a room identical to her own. In the chair, the Master is seated, also tied up, and also wearing the same round, metallic helmet.

The voice of the official who read them the charges and determined the sentence - or rather, let the computer calculate their sentence - rings out again.

"This is an auspicious day for you, Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones. In my great indulgence, I have decided that one of you will escape your fate. Better than that, you will decide yourselves who will live and who will die.

Do you see the button in front of you? If you press it, the process, which will kill your companion, will start. Who will be the fastest? But - that would be too simple, wouldn't it? For the moment, the buttons are deactivated. They will activate themselves in an unpredictable manner, and without you knowing. You will never know, when you press it, if it will have an effect or not. Two factors are going to divide you: your own will, and chance. Amusing, isn't it?

Ah - one last thing: there is a deadline. After that, if you are still alive for whatever reason, we shall return to the tried and true, basic sentence: death for both."

The bracelet around their right wrist disappears. The Master stretches out his arm and presses the button. At the same moment, Tegan shouts,

"Master, _no_!"


End file.
